Nov 25, 2010

I wanted to run this story on my blog this week because it addresses debts we owe others — often debts to persons we do not even know. I have a debt to Tom Butts as he has given me a good deal of guidance down through the years. What I have done with his solid counsel others should not hold against him. He is a peach. Tom is now pastor emeritus at FUMC, Monroeville, AL and visits Harper Lee in a nursing home at least once every week.

Having lived through the Great Depression, I have always been afraid of debt. For most of our 59 years of marriage, my wife and I have been able to avoid buying anything we could not pay for. This is not always possible, but it is an important goal. Our country’s credit card culture has led many into unmanageable debt.

Today is Thanksgiving Day, which is a proper time to think of a kind of indebtedness not measured by the dollar sign. If you live long enough, life will generate circumstances that will cause you to incur debts of a kind and magnitude that they can never be repaid. These are the debts we owe people who helped us when there was nothing we could do for ourselves. These intangible debts are sometimes owed to people we do not even know. It is like what we owe to God; it is so much and of such a kind that it can never be repaid.

Such debts can be repaid only in the currency of gratitude, which, in some ways, is very difficult to express. No matter what you say, there is so much more that needs to be said. Unfortunately, gratitude tends to be a short-lived emotion. People forget to give thanks for those intangible gifts.

Several times in my own life, I have found myself in need. I have been at the mercy of circumstances over which I had no control and somebody helped me. I have been, and am now, indebted to people who have done things for me, things for which there is no way to repay them. It is a unique feeling to realize you can never repay the people who reached out and literally saved you. Let me give you just one example of how I have become indebted. Just one example of someone who helped me in ways I can never repay.

Rev. Butts 1957

When I came home from graduate school in 1957, the South was embroiled in the civil rights struggle. I had planned to avoid any controversy so I could established myself in my new assignment to the Michigan Avenue Methodist Church in Mobile, Alabama. I quickly learned one of the realities of life; you do not pick the time and place for important battles, the time and place pick you. The fifth stanza of James Russell Lowell's 1844 poem, "The Present Crisis" comes to mind.

"Once to every man and nation comes the moment to decide, in the strife of Truth with Falsehood, for the good or evil side; some great cause, God's new Messiah, offering each the bloom or blight, parts the goats upon the left hand, and the sheep upon the right, and the choice goes by forever 'twixt that darkness and that light."

Three months after my arrival at Michigan Avenue, I was visited by three men who identified themselves as members of the Klu Klux Klan, as well as members of my church. They informed me that it was custom for the Klan to visit the church on the third Sunday night in September. They would come in the front door during the singing of the first hymn, dressed in full Klan regalia, and march down the center aisle. They would then place money on the altar, go out the side door, remove their robes and come back in to worship. I was absolutely flabbergasted. I was only 27 years old! I had no time to think about how to handle the situation, so I addressed it head-on. I said that though I had no police force with which to stop them, and was not sure I would stop them if I could, they had to understand what I would be forced to do in response. I told them that if they put money on the altar in the name of the Klan, I would sweep it up in an offering plate and throw it out behind them. The third Sunday night in September came and went and the Klan did not come. I thought I had dispatched the problem. Big mistake.

Three months later the black ministers of the city petitioned the City Council to desegregate the city bus system. Two white clergy prepared a petition in support, which I signed. I was young and idealistic. I imagined that as soon as the city fathers, and the citizens of Mobile, became aware of what the clergy felt should be done, they would respond positively and appreciatively. Another big mistake.

The lessons and realities of this situation came quickly and painfully. Among the signs that I had misjudged the local climate in general, and my church in particular, was to find a burning cross in front of the parsonage and a second burning in front of the church. Names of the white clergy who signed the petition were on the front page of the newspaper with a scathing editorial taking us to task for meddling. A sizeable group of my church members met to fire me. (I had to meet with them and explain that you cannot fire a Methodist minister.) Tithes and pledges were withheld from the church, and some members suggested the parsonage be sold and the pastor’s salary cut to just a dollar per year.

The attendance at my church reached an all-time high, and the offering fell to an all-time low. It appeared that my church not only could not pay its apportionments and mission askings, but we were dangerously close to being unable to pay utility bills. Obviously there was no money for the pastor's salary--the pastor who signed the petition to desegregate the city bus system.

One Friday afternoon, as I sat in my office anguishing over the whole situation and contemplating leaving the ministry, a very fashionably-dressed woman walked across the church lawn. I had never seen her before. She came in and asked to see the minister. As I introduced myself, she handed me an envelope and said she wanted to make a donation to my church. She said it was an anonymous gift.

When she left I opened the envelope. It contained two bills with more zeros than I was accustomed to seeing on money. It was two $100 bills. I had never seen a hundred dollar bill! I had heard they existed, but had never actually seen one. (I haven’t seen many since.)

Two hundred dollars was a lot of money in 1958! The total annual budget of my church was only $9,000. I was elated, until my wife asked how I planned to get the money into the system. My church’s officials were suspicious of outside money and would want to know the source of such large bills. I resolved the problem by driving to a bank in Brewton, Alabama, 75 miles north of Mobile, and getting the bills broken down into twenty dollar bills. When the offering was taken each Sunday, I would face the altar and, with every head bowed and every eye closed, I would drop two or three twenties in each plate. That raised the offerings to almost normal levels.

The mysterious woman came every Friday bringing $200 - $500 in hundred dollar bills. I kept the road to Brewton hot getting the money changed into smaller bills - my first experience laundering money. I never found out who the woman was or why she came. My church stayed solvent, and nobody ever knew where the money came from.

This woman literally saved my ministry. I was most grateful, but all attempts to thank her were brushed aside. Gratitude had to move beyond words for any effective expression. For the last 50 years, I have never missed a chance to help ministers in distress. Every time I am privileged to help someone, I whisper a prayer of thanksgiving for the mysterious woman who helped me so many years ago. I wonder if she realized what she did. I wonder if she even remembers. Sometimes I wish I knew who she was so I could thank her for a gift that goes on giving.

Rev. Mosser and Rev. Butts

Most of us, at some time in our lives, have been on the receiving end of gifts which have saved us. Sometimes it was money; sometimes it was an intangible act of kindness and encouragement at a critical time in our lives. Name the people you owe, if you know who they are. Write or call them and tell them how much they meant to you. If they are dead, or you do not know who they are, pass it on to others. Life has a way of giving us opportunities to repay those who have helped us.

Happy Thanksgiving!

The Rev. Dr. Thomas Lane Butts is minister emeritus of First United Methodist Church in Monroeville, AL, and has served United Methodist Churches in Florida and Alabama. Rev. Butts has been an active leader in the Civil Rights movement since the mid-fifties. He says that one of the most inspirational events in his experience was a day spent with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. shortly after Dr. King came to Montgomery, Alabama. Visit Rev. Butts page on day1.org to find out more about him.

Nov 18, 2010

In the next week we will celebrate Thanksgiving as a national holiday. For believers, Christian or Jewish, every day is a day of thanks. Yet in our most honest moments we recognize that “thanksgiving” is a tough emotion to manufacture. Most human beings are not born thankful. For another thing, we find it more difficult to give thanks for the present than we do for past things or for what the future holds. Ultimately, truly thankful people who are spiritually mature. However difficult spiritual maturity may be we do know that being mature is not simple. Thus, thanksgiving is something that we know that we ought to feel, but in practice it is a difficult notion to live out daily.

In the book of Revelation, the writer tells us that

“all the angels stood around the throne and around the elders and the four living creatures, and they fell on their faces before the throne and worshiped God, singing, ‘Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might be to our God forever and ever! Amen’ ” (Revelation 7:11-12).

Notice that thanksgiving is one of the seven aspects of the heavenly worship of God. But we all know people who see no need to thank God, or any one else for that matter.

In his book, Folk Psalms of Faith, Ray Stedman tells of an experience H. A. Ironside had in a crowded restaurant. Just as Ironside was about to begin his meal, a man approached and asked if he could join him. Ironside invited his to have a seat. Then, as was his custom, Ironside bowed his head in prayer. When he opened his eyes, the other man asked, “Do you have a headache?”

Ironside replied, “No, I don’t.”

The man asked, “Well, is there something wrong with your food?” Ironside replied, “No, I was simply thanking God as I always do before I eat.”

The man said, “Oh, you’re one of those, are you? Well, I want you to know I never give thanks. I earn my money by the sweat of my brow and I don’t have to give thanks to anybody when I eat. I just start right in!”

Ironside said, “Yes, you’re just like my dog. That’s what he does too!”

Nov 11, 2010

Today is Veterans Day 2010. As I think over my ministry I wish I knew how many soldiers of our Armed Forces I have buried who served our country with distinction. Someone once told me that war was an undertaking that revealed a person’s truest self. So today we stop and pray for both the memories of our war dead as well as for peace. Perhaps the psalmist puts it for us best:

“I am for peace/but when I speak/they are for war" (Psalm 120:7, NRSV).

Tom Brokaw called these folks in his 1998 colossal best seller of the same name “The Greatest Generation.” People in this greatest generation generally had one job their whole life and they did things that no one else wanted to do, but they did them anyway—with a quiet resolve. These folks had an almost fanatical loyalty to their family, to their church, and to their country.

They were ones who understood the phrase from national newspaper masthead (Chicago Sun [-Times]) that proclaimed, “My country—right or wrong!” Perhaps we all now know too much to subscribe to this philosophy, but you have to admit, this kind of blind loyalty to family, church, and country made their generation great. They did so much for so long, that we often forget how wonderful our country and communities are today thanks to them. Tom Hanks, who starred in “Saving Private Ryan,” gives us a good likeness of the values and loyalties that the members of this greatest generation possessed.

I want to suggest that if we want to be part of a next great generation, then we mark well the life of the last great generation. Their lives were a blueprint for faith, hope, and love. And this week of November 2010 is a time for all of us to pause—and to remember.

Nov 6, 2010

During most of November (2010) FUMC, Arlington is looking at the Wesleyan Quadrilateral: Scripture, tradition, reason, and experience. When pondering the idea of tradition for the worship series I remembered a funny story about tradition:

During a service at a synagogue in Eastern Europe, when the people prayed the Shema, half the congregants stood and half sat. The half seated shouted at those standing to sit down, and the ones standing yelled at the sitting to stand up . . . .

The rabbi didn’t know what to do. The congregation suggested consulting a homebound 98 year old man; one of the synagogue’s founders. The rabbi hoped the elderly man could tell him temple’s correct tradition. The Rabbi went to the nursing home with a representative of each faction.

The one whose followers stood during Shema said to the old man, “Is the tradition to stand during this prayer?” The old man answered, “No that is not the tradition.” The one whose followers sat said, “Then the tradition is to sit during Shema!” The old man answered, “No that is not the tradition.”

Then the rabbi said, “But the congregants fight continually, shouting about whether they should sit or stand . . . .”

The old man interrupted: “THAT is the tradition!”

*************************** “Now we command you, beloved, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, to keep away from believers who are living in idleness and not according to the tradition that they received from us” (2 Thessalonians 3:6).